DIVINATION — the professional reading of the future, and in Numbers 22:7 the FEE paid for it: the elders of Moab and Midian arrive ‘with the fees of divination in their hand’. ⚠ The word is not neutral in the Torah. Deuteronomy 18:10 puts qosem qesamim at the head of the practices Israel may not tolerate, alongside nachash, omen-reading — and Joshua 13:22 calls Balaam flatly ha-qosem, the diviner. So the chapter introduces its foreign prophet with a job title the law forbids, and then has him use the divine name in the next verse and refuse a palace of silver. Both things are true of him at once, which is the difficulty the Balaam story exists to pose. ⭐ One chapter later the word turns on the man himself: at Numbers 23:23 Balaam declares that there is no qesem in Israel — the trade he was hired for, the fee he was paid in, and the job title Joshua 13:22 gives him, denied by him of the people he is standing above. → first discussed at Num 22:7